commission cemeteries, but but where he had so near chamery. in tribute to him, in 1919, they placed this beautiful fountain. it's inscribed to him, saying he fell in the battle as part of the battle of second marne in june and july of 1918. theodore roosevelt famously said those are fit to live, who are not afraid to die," is inscribed on the fountain. quentin's remains stayed in the grave here until 1955. that's when his older brother , theodore junior, was interred at the american battle monuments commission cemetery in normandy. theodore junior had died at the normandy campaign from complications of heart disease.

it was then that the roosevelt family felt that quentin would be more honored by lying next to his older brother. and so the american battle monuments commission allowed the family to take quentin's remains and place it in a world war ii cemetery. because there's such interest in seeing roosevelt's fountain in the site nearby where the plane was shot down, the local village has placed this historical marker, showing the type of plane he flew, a new port. underneath it here is young quentin with his mascot and dog. here is an early photograph of this fountain after it was first constructed. the fountain is on avenue quentin roosevelt in chamery in

france. [water rushing] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> monday night on the committee caters, verizon senior -- monday night on the communicators, verizon senior communicator talks about -- with david mccabe. >> what is different about 5g? 5g gives us new currencies on which to develop services. and what i mean by that is, five g networks give off massive speed and bandwidth, ok? average toe speed on 4g networks and about a thousand times the bandwidth. because the way we are deploying it, and clayton knows, we're calling this ultra-wideband.

that's because we are using spectrum in the millimeter range. and there's a lot of it. when you have a lot of spectrum, what that translates to is speed. >> watch the communicators monday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span two. >> today marks the centennial of the armistice that marks the end of the fighting in world war i. johner today, authors usier and michael kazin join to discuss the war and the home front. it was supposed to be the war to end all wars. this is about 90 minutes. we welcome our viewers on c-span3's american history tv. our look at world war i for the next hour and a half.

joining us at the table is john mosier, the author of the book "the myth of the great war," and michael kazin, his book "war against war." gentlemen, thank you both for joining us. we appreciate it. john mosier, let me begin with you. and as you look at the genesis of the war, what happened in 1914 and why did it take three or four years before the u.s. got involved? >> well to answer the second part first, the u.s. was involved in supplying munitions, particularly to the french, as early as october 1914. the german attache in berlin used to show the american more correspondence american-made shells he had sitting on his desk in 1950. why did we get involved? that's a very cupcake question. basically -- complicated question.

basically, the british did a wonderful propaganda job on the united states to persuade us to get involved in the war. mark. was an easy germans andon the he was a real anglophile. he was anxious to help them. the british have made a secret arrangement with the french general staff to come to their aid in basically almost any circumstance. they basically gave the french a blank check, and that backfired. the image i always use about alliances,l these it's like one of the science fiction movies where someone is trying to reach into another dimension, and instead they get pulled in, so it goes backwards. that's what kept happening to the allies. the whole point as far as the french were concerned is the russians were supposed to make their defense possible between

the british and the russians. that didn't work out. then they tried the italians. then of course the poor italians lost 650,000 dead trying to storm up into the alps because the italian army had not been prepared, they had no thought of fighting there. it was one operation after another that turned out to be totally reserved dust reversed. steve: in your book, you say the u.s. decision to join the allies was a turning point in world history. >> it was. as john knows better than me, the u.s. troops that went to france by 1918. it took a while to get them there because the army was small before declaring war, turned the tide in the war not so much because of the battles they fought, although those were important, but because the germans realized they could not

endure very long as weak as they were against these 2 million and 2american troops million more that could have come thereby 1919. they tried their last offensive and got close to paris, but once those offensives failed, they were pretty much done. so, the fact that the u.s. does join the war does turn the tide of the war against belligerents that were exhausted. there were mutinies going on in france. in germany, the home front was crumbling. the u.s. comes in as a strong new world power, gung ho soldiers, for the most part. that's how the u.s. turned the tide. of course, if the germans had won world war i, we might have

had a very different 20th century. steve: we're looking at silent film from the home front. how were americans reacting to this war, and how did they get news? >> well, this was the golden age of the newspaper. most americans read a newspaper. there were foreign correspondents all over europe. and so, you didn't get information every day the way we do now, every hour. the way we do with the age of the internet. but there was certainly lots of information coming to americans. there were also very early newsreels that people could see when they went to the cinema about the war. so, there was no shortage of information. of course, the information, as now, was often partisan. those who supported the war often said one thing. those who opposed said something else. steve: this is from the new york times the day after the war ended, "surrender is

unconditional. ve will be claimed today." actually this is world war ii, so it's the wrong period. it does tie into my question, the german army in world war i, the german army in world war ii. why was the german army so successful, and why did they fail? >> well, they were successful because they basically came into the war prepared to fight the fight in a way the french were not in terms of heavy artillery, for example. artillery, for example. their officers were much better educated. upy basically lost and give on hindenburg, told an american journalist in 1918, because the american troops' combat performance in september and october 1918. they said before then we figured the worst possible case is we could fight to a draw.

realizedober 1918, we we were going to lose because of exactly what my colleague over here said. they couldo way fight another 3.5 million to 4 million men, fresh troops. from germany surrenders times square in new york. i want to go back to what atler's ultimately inherited the end of world war i, the remnants that started world war ii. guest: it took a while to rearm because the french and other countries sent in troops to occupy germany. the problem is unlike world war ii, world war i ended without a single foreign troop on german soil. it was possible for hitler's and some of the other veterans that supported him that germany have

not really lost the war, that it had been betrayed by jews and socialists who had stabbed germany in the back. part of the genesis of the nazi movement was veterans who were frustrated, angry that they have not lost the war, they had been betrayed. any time you have people who believe they should have won ready to fight again and win the war they should have one the first time, you have a very dangerous situation. war, thereter the was famously tremendous inflation. people had to bring will bear is full of marks to pay for things. imar government run by modern socialists was never very successful. no dominant party for most of the time. when the depression hits, the nazi party starts to grow very

quickly. host: you wrote about the --onne offensive, one of the explain the significance. what happened? guest: that was the center of the western front because it was so big. that particular branch, just the verdun was 100 kilometers. host: in terms of geography, how far from paris? guest: about 180 to 200 kilometers. the thing is that were don -- 20 kilometerst from the german border. is 75 kilometers from the mosel. broke through on

the right flank would have broke through on the right flank would have direct accesargonne, when they e through, they would still be in belgian, and they would start -- belgium, and they would run into major geographical obstacles. the argonne was the key because if you grab the argonne, you have access to the german rail lines that ran behind the lines. the germans were very determined to hang onto their positions in the argonne. the french have been trying to get them out of there since 1940 and have never succeeded. in fact they had -- 1914. they have never succeeded. in fact, they had gone the other way. in the battles for the right lost maybehad

123,000 dead or missing. it was going to be a very tough nut to crack, which the germans knew they could not afford to lose the argonne positions. once you have both sides of the valley in france, you would just roll right up, and the same route the germans used to get into france in 1914, it still saying, the road from one end to the other, you could take the same highway backwards. that is what the allies could have done. host: why is it called armistice day? guest: the germans asked for an armistice. the whole deal of them surrendered, in their minds, they were not surrendering. they were having an armistice, basically a stop order for the fighting. aest: they realized it was

surrender. guest: well, there is a certain kind of naivete in the senior german commanders. i think some of them -- first of all, they were still on belgian and french soil. they thought they were in a pretty good bargaining position. they did not realize the extent to which the bolsheviks were going to cause all the problems they were already causing immediately after the armistice. they did not realize the brits were going to keep the blockade going. the real anger that happened in germany is part of chronology. the blockade, which is december through june, 1919, which was very effective because the germans cannot do anything about it.

what is interesting there is the big three, when they came to what they werey, going to do about germany was, they spent about five minutes on that. most of the peace conference was figuring out how to chop up the various bits and pieces of germany, austria, and how to award the people like the italians and serbians and romanians they had brought to .et into the war the peace terms were like the mafia. making a deal you cannot refuse holding a gun to the guy's head. weimarnk the republic. realizeost people don't one of the reasons the u.s. got into the war was the submarine warfare against british ships

with american passengers on board and american ships later on. the british blockade of the people,a -- 500,000 younger people, older people especially, far more people than civilians died on the north atlantic from the sufferings. guest: when the british bomber command began to justify the strategic bombing of civilians in world war ii, the explicit justification for that was that it would kill far fewer people than the blockade had killed in 1919. host: john mosier is the author war,"e myth of the great and michael kazin is the author of "war against war." you said there were a lot of foreign language newspapers in

the u.s. a lot of german immigrants who came to the u.s. in the 1880's and 1890's now involved in a battle with cousins and relatives and friends and former neighbors. guest: it was not easy. when the war begins, german-american associations, which were big, dr. by the money of the brewers association pushed very hard for a total embargo on all american commerce with anybody in the war, which was going to help the germans more than the allies. after the lusitania is to repeat of in the spring of 1915, that becomes very difficult for germans to talk about because most americans are siding with the british and the french and the russians. want to't necessarily get into the war, but they don't want to support the germans.

the german-american associations go quiet. they try to avoid the war as much as possible. there are a few, a magazine called fatherland, which continues to support the kaiser and the german side of the war. realize theyans are vulnerable and try as much as possible to support candidates who do not want the u.s. to get into war, but they do not take as active a part in opposing as they had earlier. host: one who served, harry truman of the uss missouri. guest: exactly. his letter, his comments on woodrow wilson were pretty scathing in his letters to his wife. yourid, we did not come to to make the world safe for democracy, we came to be the germans, now let's go home. issue, the spanish

flu. do you want to address that? john knows the exact totals, but almost as many americans in uniform died of the flu as died in battle. host: the numbers are on the screen. 500 million infected worldwide, 50 million deaths. unusualt was an epidemic because it hit people of military age worse than younger people or older people. that is what was really frightening. guest: in late october, there were about 4000 americans in the hospitals in uniform. it got worse from there on. guest: the troop ships, too. guest: yes.

the war department was still projecting about 4 million troops in france by early spring. it affected everybody equally. figuresall have the that we would like to have for anybody else. it was a terrible thing, but the idea that it had a serious impact on one side or the other is basically just one of those interesting ideas because the germans, the italians, the austrians, the russians were affected heavily. the germans may have been a little better because they had first-rate medical care. host: where did the spanish flu originate? guest: spain, i believe. i'm not sure. guest: no,

testing, please stand by. countries that have poorer sanitation. frightening because it struck exactly that segment of the population you would normally assume would be the most immune. when we think of the flu today, think of old geezers like me getting it first. the other people survived. 18 to 25, they were hit the hardest. host: our focus on the 100 anniversary of the end of world war i. our phone lines are open. please join us in the conversation. (202) 748-8000 if you are a veteran, active duty, or retired military. all others (202) 748-8001. he will have live coverage of , thedent trump in paris

ceremony scheduled to get underway in about an hour in 10 minutes. we welcome our viewers on c-span. the comparison of u.s. andlvement in world war i what he faced compared to what fdr faced in world war ii. guest: i have a colleague who did a lot of work on wilson related to the suffrage movement, and her contention was that the president would talk to the leaders and tell them what he thought they wanted to hear, and they would all leave convinced he was on their side, and then he basically would not do anything at all. did pretty much the same thing as far as the first world war. that is why william james brian, his secretary of state, quit.

nt said neutrality is sort of like being pregnant, you cannot be a little bit neutral, you cannot be a little bit pregnant. we were sending the french and the british arms. the french in particular need them because france did not have the capability to make high explosives because they lacked the raw material. host: he pointed out in your book that the allies were inept on the battlefield. guest: that's correct. they were not prepared. this is a war that nobody had fought except the russians since 1870. the only people that have any real combat experience were in their late 60's. everybody made lots of mistakes. it is typical in warfare, the side that covers from its mistakes first usually does very well.

that was definitely true of the germans. they recovered more quickly. a lot of the mistakes the allies retrospect, i would sit there and shake my head. it is like some of the battlefields they got involved in, i can explain why it happened. you had a bunch of staff officers in paris who had never been to this part of france. they looked at a map, and they thought -- they did not realize a 30 or 40 foot difference in elevation can be dramatically important. they were sending troops to try to take places, particularly in likeentral part that were uttes the300 feet b

germans would get on top of. you would have been slaughtered by guys with bows and arrows, much less guys with modern firearms. host: explain how an assassination in surrey able in - sarajavo in 1914 got this started? guest: there were these alliances that were set up. the french and the russians had an alliance. the germans and the austro-hungarian's had a tacit alliance to defend one another. the british understood that if the germans got close to their atlantic, they would be threatened as well. there was an arms race between all these empires, the german empire, the russian empire, the

austro-hungarian empire, the french empire to be ready for war. none of them wanted to happen. the serbian government basically had a terrorist group called the black and that they were hand thatg -- black they were supporting. austro hungary, one of the problems was bosnia. was saraje of that vo. the archdeacon archduchess, and the archduke was the heir apparent of austro hungry. they were taking a visit to sarajevo in 1914. this terrorist group, the blackhand, that believed bosnia should be part of serbia, decided to assassinate the heir apparent.

famously, at first his car into a different way, and then he came back. the assassin surprisingly saw his car, the archduke and archduchess, and took a lucky shot and killed both of them. alliances began to kick in. austro-hungarian's amended apologize and make restitution. the serbs were backed up by the russians, saying it was not our fault. it was just some terrorists. we have nothing to do with them. on thermans egged austro-hungarian's to act aggressively against the serbs. the russians say if you do that, we are going to declare war on austria-hungary. once the russians began to mobilize their troops come which , extended enterprise. the railroad lines were not

accurate. the germans say, it looks like the russians are mobilizing their troops. we better declare war on russia. plan, thes had this plan shall even plan, where they would have enemies on both sides in europe. they did not want to be attacked on both fronts. that is why the germans justify themselves to invade france through belgian. -- belgium. belgians woulde allow the superior force of the german army to go through and get to france. they fought back. that is how the war started. once the belgians fight back, the british declared war on germany, and you have a two front war. the myth of the great war, how the germans fought the battles, and the war against war by michael kazin.

let's bring in our viewers. the veteran, good morning. caller: good morning. one of the problems we have is it takes a long time to get out of a war setting. the problem that happens is that in vietnam, people were coming back. they were on the battlefield one day. by nightfall, they were back in civilian lives. mentally, they were not ready for that. that is what we need to tell our congressman. need to help these people come out of this mode. host: thank you. of veterans burying fellow veterans, what was it like as they returned from europe in 1919?

guest: as one of that came back said, we went to europe to make the world safe for democracy and came back to find we couldn't get a drink. they were actually ready irritated. however, what he was saying is -- i think the veterans affairs people have not really adjusted to this new technology because it took a long time to bring the truth back in both wars. -- the troops back. you had to bring them across the ocean, get them organized. -- you could bring people back home to the united states almost instantly area but the ocean trip, those ocean voyages really helps people decompress because there were soldiers who understood that it

took days and days to set their and then they had to get home. that's not the case anymore. 1919 is one of these years in world history with lots of revolutions, the beginning of world communism. and a lot of the veterans that theyback, first of all, didn't have jobs, and also there were huge strikes in places in 1919. many different industries. partly because there was so much pent-up desire for a better life for democracy at home. not just democracy abroad. there were race riots in 1990, the famous chicago one were a lot of black americans moved to the north to get more jobs out of the south and whites who lived in the neighborhood that they moved into having blacks moving in. came backhe doughboys

to a country in turmoil and were part of the turmoil as well. >> and they were called doughboys because? >> at interesting. nobody knows the exact an apology but people have sand,ing involved with the dirt that was on the uniforms. there was something about some flour. do you know the actual story? >> it's one of those that's lost to history, how it began. >> the same way with the standard french word that they used for the infantry. and the derivation of that. a lot of these things just kind of happened spontaneously, it seems. we know what g.i. mend, government issue. >> true, what world war i, it really is interesting.

host: over to henry in new york city, thank you for waiting. caller: you're welcome. everyone.ng to i'm going to ask rather quickly and i would appreciate not getting cut off. my assertion is at the beginning of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, there was a tension between germany and great britain. of rwandaconquest with botswana in the middle. and also, close to the french territories of that, i'm talking a similar room. but look more quickly focus on the germans, the need to become an imperial power. going through the west and the east, which happens to be on the road to india. that's very important in those days. is a threat to an imperial power. with theave a treaty

sultan of turkey and the kaiser to develop oil and build a railroad. the germans were going to build this railroad and take it straight to berlin because from constantinople to berlin. guest: well, two things. the whole colonial struggle, the whole colonial thing, it's very complicated. but the british basically were very concerned about german commercial competition. when you look at british travelers who went to parts of turkey and iraq and persia, one of the first things that they commented on was that german businessmen are eating our lunch over here. bismarck was totally

opposed to german colonialism, the people were a bunch of intellectuals who knew better and they did a lot worse. i think the caller is quite right. that was a major source, but also the french. the french and the british were wrangling colonial affairs because the french were very expansionist in africa. and they were running into british spheres of influence. turkey was a real nervous point for the russians. german development was very threatening to them. but i don't think there was any particular -- there's nothing nefarious about it. it was just like the north atlantic. the british got really bent out

of shape. he german ships were doing so much better than the british ships. for one reason, they did not give running into icebergs and sinking. >> and yet, as the armistice is put in place, you quote one historian that it led to the age of catastrophe. can you explain? know, i think as we know, wilson says this would be a war to end all wars, he thought the united nations was going to be this innovation that would stop wars before they got large enough to involve the whole world. in fact, what happened instead was as we talked about before, world war ii. revolutions, the beginning of the cold war, with the united states sending troops into siberia. to rescue check troops who were also to rally but

the revolutionary armies against the bolsheviks. 1945 was morentil bloodshed, revolutions. the greatest depression in world history. americans reasons why soured on world war i by the 1830's -- 1930's and was it to do anything to avoid another war including testing neutrality is because the aftermath of world war i was so horrible. it was just the reverse of what wilson wanted. he was this great figure who believe that by his force of will, he could convince not just americans, but also his european allies to make the world a better place instead of a structure for a better world. and he failed pretty miserably.

inof course, he had a stroke 1919 and that became the end of his presidency. wristt from one of the saying "be termed doughboy was first used in the mexican-american war in the early 1800s, the origin unclear even from them. >> that's fascinating. it's go to bob joining us in fort collins, colorado. a veteran. good morning and thank you for your service. caller: thank you. good morning gentlemen. during thea teenager invasion of belgium and the occupation. and i hearing various stories from him and what i read. what does your research show you on how the belgian civilians were treated? >> world war i, i assume? well, basically, that's very controversial. because the belgian authorities

certainy authorized members of either the government or just who had been in the army or something who started kind of , asare which the germans most uniformed troops really don't like it when civilians start shooting at them. there were reprisals. the extent to which those were justified or unjustified is actually one of those things that just has never really been fleshed out because at the same time, the british and french really were going hog wild with anti-german propaganda. correspondence who were there at belgium who didn't really see anything to support that. are, iot of the stories

think, the result of propaganda. on the other hand, i'm not trying to distend what the germans did. this is just one of those areas that we don't really know of -- it's it's sort sort of brings out whose political axe is being ground by this or whose ox. hande propaganda on one that the british were putting out which was very effective. belgians,help the there were these posters of germans raping belgium women. interesting, the sideline is a good way to put it. time,n-americans at the they were very critical as they should have been about how the belgians were treated.

died in theongolese building of that colony and so, when americans were asked by the british especially to help the belgians, some african-american newspapers said talk to the congolese. what goes around, comes around. that's one of the reasons why many african-americans were not as enthused about getting to war as most white americans were. >> also one of the problems that atrocitiesas the that allegedly the germans were committing on the belgians sounded exactly like the atrocities that people have reported that the belgians were committing on the congolese. and so, i think any

african-american journalist or anybody who is really following all of this begins to wonder, i wonder was really going on there? host: we welcome our listeners on c-span radio and on serious xm. they carried a program every sunday morning and in great britain, it is sunday afternoon. , webbc parliament channel welcome your calls and your participation as we look act on the centennial of the end of world war i. richard hall from our staff traveling to the battlefield in france. including where the american battle monuments take place and we talk to jeffrey hayes about how those who paid the ultimate price are honored. 4153 soldiers lay here. it's basically a cemetery that was built, started after the war was over, and basically as a concentration cemetery. what the soldiers actually did was we had soldiers in our area from about 10 kilometers north or south. they actually did sweeps of the

cemetery and when they would find our dead, they would bring them here and bury them here. and that's how the cemetery started. ofwas laid out in march 1919, the first men and women were buried here in april of 1919. basically, the father of the dnc. his hand print count his fingerprints are still here today. he basically put down a lot of rules and regulations that we still live by today. they control what we do. notice when you walk in, there's no segregation. there is no difference with males and females. there's no separation of ranks. everybody is based out of the middle of the cemetery. he did not allow any difference with officers or african-american soldiers. he did not allow that separation. we could never forget when someone gives us life for us or

our country. we can't forget that. and these men died for us. they died for france, they died for the rest of humanity to try to improve the world. let's not forget them. can't forget them. >> you have been there. what your impression? >> of the cemetery? oh, yeah. the first time i saw it, it just totally blew my mind because the chapel is like something you would imagine they would have had for the pope and the renaissance. it's just incredibly well done. but the monuments that are equally fantastic, the one down impressive.y and the whole thing is done in contrasting stones, marble.

in fact, i asked one of the groundskeepers -- because that was one of the first ones i saw -- >> we just saw all those tombstones in uniform, all in unison. it's a remarkable site. >> yes. but that's 4000. actually, here's the deal. the french military cemeteries are way, way bigger. the 14,000, 15,000. >> many more french., of course. >> and the problem is that a lot of times in the american ones, you see one person for each grade. 4, french, you see 3, sometimes they only have a piece of the guys name. asked the french guy, were there any french monuments? and he said no. the only monument we built in

france would be a scaffold on which we could hang members of the government. which pretty much sums up the french. you go to french towns for --ld war i memorials, >> where is the one in the united states? >> very good question. >> kansas city. >> it's a museum and memorial. >> but it's not in washington. one, not far from here on independence avenue to americans from d.c. who died in the war. closeey are building one to the ronald reagan building. i don't know when it's supposed to be done, a year or two? the fact that there is no memorial for those who died in -- it's a sign of

how world war i has mostly fallen down the memory hole. store is joining us from mechanicsville, virginia. caller: good morning. my father was a veteran also a world war ii and for years, he had a foot locker down in the whoment of my grandfather was in a horse-drawn artillery in france. trunk, he had his own stacks, he had his campaign has. mirror, andy small a straightedge razor. i don't know what ever became of it all and he had a couple metals. i make a long story short, might be wrong, but i'm pretty the amount of donuts that

were served as servicemen. i've heard it was like a joke. grandfather, he contracted the flu you will talk about. weree got it when they coming back home, on the troopship coming back. and when he stepped off in new york, he passed out. i wish we could address also, he also participated in protests up in washington, d.c. when they were promised some extra money for serving. >> yeah. to put it down, i think i'm correct in that. well, congress had after world war i, had appropriated to give a bonus to world

war i veterans. and the great depression hit, a were homelesss without jobs and they said could you please pay the bonus earlier? and they had a march on washington to try to pressure congress to get the money paid to them but congress thought that. troops tohoover said put down the intendment of the marchers. george patton was one of the assistance i think, at the time. this was a real black eye for president hoover, not surprisingly. campng troops to bust up a . to bust up a camp of men who were asking for money to keep their lives together.

money they had been promised and had not yet been given. mentioned in was that conversation, general john pershing. how significant was he in the u.s. effort in world war i? >> he was very, very significant. pershing actually had a law degree. did once hehings he got to france in -- was he fought a bitter battle with the british in france. who basically wanted american --ops just to be fed into particularly the british, just to be fed into their unit. they did not want an american army in france. wilson got lots of complaints as the war went on, particularly after july, 1918. point, it sort of looks like at some point, the

british and french were really more worried that the americans might win the war than they were that they might lose it. i don't think that was conscious, but if you sort of look at how they behaved, that certainly seems to be the case. i think pershing -- the two main ideas that he had, one of them was to make sure that the american troops were not committed or fit into existing units. assemble was to try to a major army with oversized divisions because he knew that there was no real way to replace it. i think there's also politics involved. wilson wanted the united states to help decide. together a team of nations.

he didn't trust europeans to let the colonies go, and so he wanted the united states to be seen as the deciding. and that's part of the reason. >> i think wilson figured out -- when the british came to him in may or june of 1917 and said by the way, we are totally broke, at that point, he began to get suspicious. because he certainly heard them all complaining about pershing. they basically would listen and nothing would get on. the big military history complaint about pershing is that he didn't understand modern warfare. the only guys on the allied side who understood modern warfare -- take definitely did not understand modern worker. >> and of course, one of his young lieutenants was point grad dwight d. eisenhower.

>> that's right. when pershing shut of the battlefield monument formation, in all the battlefield plans, eisenhower was basically his right-hand man. >> very quickly and want to follow up from a tweet because we have had some conversation on this earlier, why do we highlight the role of nationalism as a driving force of world war i and why is it pertinent today. >> there were these empires, all these major battles. not to mention, we were all battling for territory, battling for strategic advantage. battling for public opinion as they all said we didn't start the war. mean, i present the fence nationalism in very different kind of nationalism, but the nationalism going on in world

war i was very aggressive nationalism. and not surprisingly, we ended up in some of the worst industries. >> they are discussing parts of our past deliberately omitted from our school textbooks. >> i don't know about deliberately. --hink the problem with this the problem with history is it's not nice to us. a lot of times the people teaching it, they never get very far. they spend so much time trying to do the whole thing. so when they get to like 1900, it always seems to me that there totally run out of time. begin?s one how to best get into it. i asked my students, why do we celebrate veterans day on this day? they don't know.

unlike world war ii, people know pearl harbor. there was no pearl harbor, there was no attack like the civil war which began with u.s. involvement in world war i. it was a slow process. it's harder to explain, harder to teach that war than so many other wars. things, for example -- the british nurse who was shot by the germans, really was a spy. mi six andhead of great britain recently did research on that. one of the problems is that there were a lot of ink they got swept under the rug. from howard beach, new york,

thank you for waiting. good morning, what is your question or comment? caller: thanks for taking my call. perhaps you can help me. first, why did germany decide not to renew the reinsurance treaty with russia? host: stay on the line, we will get an answer to that and come back with your follow-up. well, bismarck understood was in long as germany the same wave, france could not call them any trouble. and they were right. successors knew better and they knew considerably worse and they managed -- not only did they lose to the russians, they lost the italians. who originally had been allies with the germans, the austrians. you how all ofw

that was, as late as 1912, the french army was still planning for a war that they would have to fight with italy, even the french foreign ministry had already cut a deal with the government that, in the case of a war against germany, they would be neutral. so when you have the government at that level, it's not surprising some of the stupidity that you see. host: want to follow up? yes, i would. what i don't understand is if germany is worried about a two front war, they had an agreement with the russians. and when that ended because they turned it down, the french took their place. >> you are absolutely right. . guest: help me with this. when the trench line was completed to the channel, was

there ever an attempt to end the war? it finally, why was considered this war inevitable? thank you. guest: the first part about to makes, they tried suggestions about an armistice and some kind of arrangement as early as november of 1914. the british and the french basically would not have anything to do with that. war, they devoted an incredible amount of time to explaining away why the allies had refused to negotiate with the germans or the austrians, releasearly after the of the agreement for the french and british agreeing to chop up turkey. that did not sit too well.

a lot of that, just incredibly porter's reasoning as they were you would hardly expect the germans -- we will just do whatever you guys want. you are losing. tweet from michael was as "isolation was a cultural back of the u.s. of a time of" from your book, the most popular song in 1915 was ". i've" been raised to be a soldier" can you explain? >> the peace movement was a very broad coalition. leading a group called the -- men make wars and only women can

stop them. sold 800,000 copies of sheet music in 1915. "i didn't raise my weight to be a soldier" let's have enough a song was popular when people were buying the play in bars and at home. there was a sense in the united states that the war that the united states is not gotten into was a war that didn't involve the united states and the united states had no stake. you had a strong women's movement at the time. popularity of that song had a pop lot to do -- had a lot to do with the popularity of the women's movement. host: explain this picture of the parade. caller: the first antiwar

demonstration took place. guest: there were 1500 women from all different: -- all different countries, belligerent companies and neutral. note natural -- no national flags were allowed to be carried. 100,000 or 50,000 people watched it from the street, from the sidewalks as well. blessed theon parade at the time. he began to move gradually toward helping the allies. most americans when the war began wanted no part of it. if you had a poll in 1914, americans said the u.s. should fight in the war. host: another photograph, a key senator at this time.

a republican. how significant was he in the antiwar movement. guest: there were factions in both parties, republicans and democrats who opposed building up the military. if the united states did decide to go to war. he was a leader of progressive republicans of the midwest who the united states would be more likely to fight the war. i think he was right in the end. he was a very controversial figure. he was one of six senators to vote against declaring war in april. after it was dangerous to do so. there was an attempt in the hadte to expel him, which only been done for a few senators who joined the confederacy. in the senate.

many americans had turned against at that point. he was the highest profile republican who opposed the war. guest:let's get back to phonet calls or you are with our two guests. caller: thank you for c-span. good morning. i served with a squadron on inky station coral 1969 through 1970. color, i am an honorably discharged veteran of a dishonorable war. let me explain that. to be temporarily divided under the 1954 geneva agreement which the united states agreed -- refused to sign. there were to be the unification elections in 1956, but those

were canceled by john foster dallas and president eisenhower, knowing the outcome for ho chi minh. i would like to thank you for the 1984 reagan video. i feel he was speaking to my late father who served with the combat engineers and went from d-day all the way to the rhine. finally, i would like to close with a quote from my first commander in chief, george washington, the willingness with people are tog serve in any war, no matter how justified shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier

wars were treated and appreciated by their nation. thank you and have a good day. host: we thank you for the copy or to his voice, you hear what? guest: conviction. everybody who served -- that was my generation. everybody who served in the military during the third waychinese war was in some really scarred by it. and it didn't improve. a lot of people became justifiably disenchanted all the way around. say, all honor to ,hose who served in every war but most have been wars of choice.

arld war i was certainly world of choice. vietnam war was a war of choice. world war ii was an exception. we were attacked. it is important to understand before we get into wars whether it makes sense to get into that war. too often we think that as the earlier color was saying, wars are inevitable and we have to fight them. i wrote a book or against war to impart and make people think about why you get into a war and whether the people who oppose getting into the war should be as honored in their own way as people who actually fight in the war. the armistice was signed and what were the mistakes and flaws that lets world war ii? guest: oh god. talk about complexity. allies, they the

spent almost the entire time divide -- see who was going to get the goodies. they had already promised romania most of transylvania. they had made promises to serbia and wilson had personally made promises for czechoslovakia. the problem in central europe in a nutshell is everybody claimed as his historical write a piece of real estate that originally belonged to someone else. to educateo way that. wilson always thought he was the smartest guy in the room, but he did know anything at all about the complexity of the situation. my old mentor and political science was one of his interpreters at per side. when he got older, are the time

i knew him he was already old, i would be telling him about what i had discovered doing research and his refrain over and over again was the president did not know that. in fact, a lot of things he did not know. i would say that just generated the fact that when the slovaks showed up in versailles, the french of police were deported back to prague. if you read life magazine in the 1920's, when they started acting up, everybody knew it was a problem with the slovaks. that is what happens when you disenfranchise big groups of people, particularly when wilson talking about the rights of the people and autonomy to determine for the people on the ground,

everybody except the hungarians and germans, their votes did not count. so in that sense, yes. since there was no negotiating possible about the actual terms, versailles was the first time -- if you go back to major peace , after the napoleonic are negotiations going on about how do we balance all of these out? none of that. here it is, sign it or else. what that meant was a lot of orple who opposed hitler's were just ordinary germans were really outraged when they realized how they had been treated and carved up. inticularly since already december 1918, the civil war had

broken out. it was a very bloody civil war. -- wilsonole idea said the war to end all wars, well maybe in france and america, but the fighting from finland all the way into romania was -- went on. it was not resolved until the polls be the soviets and they signed the peace a treaty in 1922. host: 100 years since world war i. our guests here at the table, john mosher, and author of many books. , back to yourzen phone calls. mark is a joining us from charleston, south carolina. good morning. thank you for c-span's coverage all year and all of the things you have done.

two summers ago, we had richard ruben from brunswick, maine talk to us in belgrade public library about the last of the doughboys, where he interviewed veterans from world war i. the book came out in 2013 and then he was sent over to france, where he walked the backwoods and some of the munitions are still there, quite dangerous. whoas with a tour guide warned him about not touching certain things. the other thing i was amazed when he presented to us was that the germans electrified the villages come the french villages as they conquered them. i would like comments from your historians there. know much about

the electrification of the villages. that when thet is and the eastern chunk of lorraine, which were ethnically german, they poured enormous amounts of money into those two areas, which had already been pretty wealthy. one of the problems french soldiers had when they crossed in to the alsace, they were flabbergasted to find all the things that people in that part of lorraine had that france did not have. you can still tell to this day into partsoss over of lorraine, you can still tell map,ut even having a

because there are no sidewalks on the french side. the germans and the whole curiosity, i talked to a young woman whose mother has been alive during the second world orchardshe had a big which had been totally flattened in the first world war. >> we talk a lot about the battlefields in france and in because that's where the united states ended up sending more were killed on the eastern front instead of the western front. i was in tanzania a few years ago and i found that all shells from rifles of germans who were fighting to retain colonies. so, east africa was also a battlefront in the war. we think so much about france

and belgium and that front, but that was just one of several fronts in the war. women earned the right to vote in 1920. did the war and suffragette movement hasten the ability for women to vote? guest: absolutely. the movement is premature to the peace movement. they believe that war is bad for women and children. earlyce it is clear by 1917, the suffrage movement takes a big step to change the position and begins to say let's support the war to show women can be as good patriots of the homefront helping the men who are fighting over in europe and women began to take jobs in what had been male jobs on the railroads, some factories, women had the nurses before that.

anyone began to roll bandages -- the involved in saving serving meals that are based not on meat, because the meat was going to europe. there was a sense that the suffrage movement is thanks by many politicians for supporting the war. women are essential to the battle on the homefront, as essential as men were to the battle in france. hard. is very wilson, who had opposed women's suffrage, he supported it as a state-by-state. hard for him to oppose women's suffrage. during 1917, when the u.s. goes to war, there is a group called the women's peace party. demonstrations.

they chained themselves to the gates of the white house and get arrested by saying wilson is a hypocrite. he forced democracy at home but he does not support democracy for the majority of the population, which is female. this also makes him look like a hypocrite. congress toult for keep opposing suffrage. congress passes the amendment and bite 1920 it is ratified. it was essential for suffrage to pass at the federal amendment or for the suffrage movement to have changed its stance to pro-war. host: maia from silver spring, maryland. caller: thank you for taking my call. this has been fascinating. thank you all for the books that you are writing. thank everyone for remembering the soldiers. i want to remember my two grandfathers who fought in world war i.

he was wounded in the argonne. patched back up and sent to the front. grandfather was aghast with mustard gas, was very sick, sent home early, thank god both survived although my one grandfather emotional never quite survived the war, but i just want to remember them and all the other men who fought and lost their lives. thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. a surgeon inr was france during world war i per i don't remember what company he was part of. from fishers, indiana. good morning. caller: good morning to her die

the guests could address the situation. my understanding is that the country of poland did not appear on the map before the war, but did reappear after the war. poland had been partitioned. the russians got most of it, the austrians got the good parts and the germans got a little piece. versailles -- basically had to ratify a fait accompli since the polls had fought in every army during the first world war, it was easy for fairly put together a large army. poland is a big country. they did and the allies thatvered to their horror the polls were simply going to

resurrect historic greater poland, whether they liked it or not. did.ct, they even though it wasn't really sanctioned, they basically threw in the towel on that. but that actually had a lot of on what happened in the second world war. it left a lot of bad feelings, particularly with the british foreign service and who had a tendency to blame poland for being needlessly aggressive in 1939. host: i want to take you back out life to the tomb of the unknown on a clear, crisp november morning. ceremonies getting underway later today. 11:00riately enough at eastern time. this is the tomb of the unknowns. we travel to the french

battlefield, telling the story of the selection of the american soldier who lies in perpetuity at the tomb of the unknown. as we watch this live picture we go back to the french battlefield with that story. among the unknown soldier buried, three are kind of special. these are the three american soldiers that were not selected unknowne american soldier buried in arlington. in 1921, it was decided to have one american unknown soldier to civilize all the losses from the war. fromr bodies were exempt four of the american cemeteries in france. for coffins from american unknown soldiers and it was

asked for one american soldier to choose one coffin among the four to become the new -- the american unknown soldier appeared one was elected was sent back to the usa and that is the one you no bearing in arlington. but the three others that were there at that ceremony are these three. host: the story of the tomb of the unknown. from the washington post, a photograph from the ceremony that took place in 1921. warren harding was president at the time that they officially dedicated the tomb of the unknowns. part of the ceremonies today as we reflect on the 100th anniversary of the end of world war one. richard is joining us from

wilson, north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. proud retired u.s. marine, vietnam, 1967 and 68. thanks for the opportunity to say hello for all american veterans. i served 1965 to 1971 caret i at danang, 68 tet offensive and i was attached to the third marine division. we went from one end of vietnam to the other. say hdl l if ist may be permitted to say so. thank you for taking my call. god bless america. host: thank you for your call. what are you hearing from these veterans? and if we were here in 1919 during this conversation, would we care similar stories? guest: probably. coursering pride and of

love for their comrades as is true for all soldiers in all wars. also some ambivalence. e-l-l. also there were fewer second thoughts about the second world war. -- four is the most important thing a country can do, i think. a government certainly can send people to do. it elicits tremendous emotions also of and love and misgivings, i think. i think we hear some of those emotions in what the veterans are saying. host: charlotte, north carolina, good morning. caller: think you for having me.

i have been watching and listening for the whole year. was alicether stevens. he was deployed out of newport, news -- newport news, on the on june 1918. he was in company l313. the antigone is a ship which the rest of stack it was mast. i'm wondering if they deployed sales, it had a crow's nest. i don't know how long it took to get over there, but he was there the argonnetry in forest. on the antigone into newport news. i was wondering, when they got

over there come i am assuming they entered into the war like in probably july, 1918. what would that have been like for them? was the war winding down or was it ramping up and thank you so much. i'm just going to go by and listen. host: thank you. both want to weigh in. 1918, the french and british were on the ropes. probably one of the second worst second or third worst months of the war. was notefinitely ramping down. in thatuspect if he was particular sector, he was not involved in the july 1918 fighting. done by basically being the marines and the first u.s.

who stopped fought, what we would call the second battle which was july 1918. the battle was the bloodiest single battle in american military history. it doesn't begin until september 1918. and it doesn't end until armistice day. it wasn't winding down. >> it was for us because that was the worst we've had. french, oneish and of the things i should say is in the last part of the war, 60 plus a days, 70 days the british and french casualties were much more substantial than the

americans. host: we will look at some of those numbers including the total number of americans who served in world war i as well as the deaths by german, russian, u.k.h, austria, hungary, brian is next for michigan. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for the call. i would like to honor my thestors jim and robert, former was at the argonne in the trench mortars. the latter a marine. of the red aird division. my question is about robert. with a picture of him, he was in the marines, he is a cross on his uniform and we wonder what the metal is. also, what do you think would have happened if we had stayed out of the war? >> you answer that question in your book, had we stayed out, what would have happened? guest: it would have been a

draw, basically. until july, he figured it would be a draw, because the french andbritish were so weak their demography was against them. they had no more troops. guest: you never know, but it is likely that there would have been a draw or these governments would have crumbled, maybe revolutions, there was a revolutionary movement in france, germany, and italy. i think one thing that is pretty clear, if it had been a draw, it would have been hard for hitler's to organize. so, it's a controversial point,

but i think if the germans when world war i, orders a draw, you don't have world war ii. never knows. it is speculation, but that is a pretty sobering thing to think about. >> definitely sobering. host: john mosher. and michael kazen. this if you follow us on twitter at c-span history, it is april 1917, you are a member of congress. cast your vote regarding a declaration of war on germany. we encourage you to ii